Speaker 1: On the Doll cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bell cast La jamie
Speaker 1: voi blood and Espanol and Spanglish. What sorry, I'm playing
Speaker 1: the part. I'm playing the part of Adam Sandler. Okay,
Speaker 1: necessito esta visto mm vida? So what? This movie is
Speaker 1: the worst movie I've seen in my life? Wow? Coming
Speaker 1: in hot. Well, I'm Adam Sandler and you're a hypocrite.
Speaker 1: You're the worst movie ever, even though that makes no sense. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said it. Look at my hair. It looks I've
Speaker 1: never seen Adam Sandler's hair looking so bad. Ah, well,
Speaker 1: that didn't pass the Becktel test at all. I think
Speaker 1: if we're dumping on Adam Sandler, that actually does pass
Speaker 1: the Bechtel tests. The hair like, yeah, this was what?
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechdel cast. Um, Caitlin, you were you?
Speaker 1: How long have you been learning Spanish? Now? Nearly two years,
Speaker 1: although I also studied it in high school in college,
Speaker 1: but I forgot everything I learned back then, and now
Speaker 1: I've been re learning. It's been starting fresh amazing. Shouts
Speaker 1: out to Due Lingo, and shout out to my Spanish
Speaker 1: tutors Adriana and Mercedes. They're the best anyway. Well, that's uh.
Speaker 1: That that was Caitlin Toronte you heard well, and and
Speaker 1: and that was Jamie Loftus. Yeah. Uh. And this is
Speaker 1: our show where we take your favorite movies and take
Speaker 1: another look at it through an intersectional feminist lens and
Speaker 1: make fun of it or not, using the Bechdel test,
Speaker 1: which is what well. It is a media metric created
Speaker 1: by queer cartoonists Alison Becktel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.
Speaker 1: There are many versions of the test. The one that
Speaker 1: we use these days requires that two people of a
Speaker 1: marginalized gender have names, They must speak to each other
Speaker 1: in any language, and that conversation has to be clarification.
Speaker 1: Of course, it doesn't just have to be English, it
Speaker 1: can be English, and that conversation has to be about
Speaker 1: something other than ombre a man. I got that, yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, yes, So we use that as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point to initiate a larger conversation in and uh
Speaker 1: with us to join in in that conversation is a
Speaker 1: returning guest. She's a writer, poet host of the podcast.
Speaker 1: To say more, Her new book Dreaming of You just
Speaker 1: came out at the end of October and you remember
Speaker 1: her from our episode on thirt Team Going on thirty.
Speaker 1: It's Melissa Lozatta Aliva. Hi, thanks for having me back back.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have had a sip of water while you
Speaker 1: guys were talking, almost like electrocuted myself with a spittake
Speaker 1: in my reporting that My god. Um, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to talk about this movie. Yes, I am so thrilled
Speaker 1: that you brought us this movie. Well, first, before we
Speaker 1: get started, please tell our listeners a little bit about
Speaker 1: your book, because I just want to make sure we're
Speaker 1: talking about it at the beginning and everyone's gonna order
Speaker 1: this damn book. Yeah. My book is UM. It's a
Speaker 1: novel in verse. I guess um. That's how it's being marketed.
Speaker 1: I think it's a rock I think it's a rock opera, UM,
Speaker 1: and it's about its palms. It's a story of a
Speaker 1: young poet whose name is also Melissa Um, who brings
Speaker 1: to Hannah pop star Selena back to life through a
Speaker 1: seance and the disastrous consequences that follow and it's about
Speaker 1: like loneliness and obsession and celebrity and death and the
Speaker 1: occult maybe and WiFi. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: get into it if you don't already have a copy,
Speaker 1: because it's amazing. Hell yeah thanks. And in terms of Spanglish,
Speaker 1: why did you choose this movie to discuss and what
Speaker 1: is your connection to it? That sounded very accusatory. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: could you fucking explain yourself board of game? Like, what
Speaker 1: what is your connection to history with this movie? It's
Speaker 1: almost Yeah, I came out in two thousand four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a very This movie is so weird. I'm
Speaker 1: still like very sentimental about it. I saw it on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day with my family because Latinos we celebrate it
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve Christmas, but we all like went together
Speaker 1: as a family, and it was like right before my
Speaker 1: parents got divorced, and like all of my like my
Speaker 1: grandmother was there and my mom and my sister and
Speaker 1: my whole family was like crying because my mom was like,
Speaker 1: this is the story of my life. Um, and it
Speaker 1: was very like oh, like my sister would like translate
Speaker 1: from my mom. My mom never had like a weird
Speaker 1: affair with Adam Sandler. But and then I think yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I like re examined it in college and saw,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the weirdness about it. And I
Speaker 1: have this like fascination with Christina, who's like main character
Speaker 1: and how I don't know this, I'm like really interested
Speaker 1: in this idea of the like young Latin child being
Speaker 1: like a genius and like the Latin young Latin child
Speaker 1: to Hamilton's pipeline um of like yeah, so anyway, I
Speaker 1: love this movie. So but it's also anyway, we we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it, Jamie, what's your relationship with it? I
Speaker 1: also really liked this movie. I saw it when it
Speaker 1: came out. Yeah, because I was like twelve in this
Speaker 1: movie came out. I don't know, but I remember seeing
Speaker 1: it in theaters with my mom. I feel like it
Speaker 1: was marketed as kind of like a mother daughter movie,
Speaker 1: and so we went and I really liked it. I
Speaker 1: also was not allowed to watch Adam Sandler movies, so
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, Adam Sandler is so boring. What
Speaker 1: does everyone like so upset about based on this movie?
Speaker 1: But then this movie was also on T and T
Speaker 1: all the time, so I'd watch it whenever it was,
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, and I really, um, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: haven't watched this movie in at least five years. It's
Speaker 1: definitely longer than I remembered two hours, two hours in
Speaker 1: eleven minutes. Yeah, and I also wasn't I didn't remember
Speaker 1: that it was a James Brooks movie, which is like
Speaker 1: so bizarre on so many levels that we'll, I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it. But yeah, this is the first
Speaker 1: time i'd watched it since I had a better understanding
Speaker 1: of like who James Brooks was other than a name
Speaker 1: at the beginning of The Simpsons. So I'm excited to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Yeah, I still like this movie is
Speaker 1: still hit for me a lot watching it, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's there's ship, There's plenty of ship. But there were
Speaker 1: still moments where I was like, oh, that's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful scene. Yeah, there's a lot of poetry in it.
Speaker 1: There is. Yeah, it's nice. Also, I asked, the sailer's
Speaker 1: hair is so distracted against is it a wig? Like?
Speaker 1: Is it a wig? Like? I don't. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've never seen his hair that like thick. It felt
Speaker 1: like a wit. Maybe he just has a buzz. Usually
Speaker 1: it's not as though they were like lacking for a budget.
Speaker 1: It's like there was a hair and makeup budget. The
Speaker 1: budget for this movie was eighty million dollars and was
Speaker 1: also a box office flop because it only grows like
Speaker 1: fifty five million or something. But which is like so
Speaker 1: silly because that's million. Is I think, like pretty respectable
Speaker 1: for a rom com. This movie just shouldn't have cost
Speaker 1: eighty million dollars. It was like there was like three locations, right,
Speaker 1: Is that just like the cost of Adam Sandy. Yeahdam
Speaker 1: sand there was probably like seventy million, and like no
Speaker 1: offense to Adam Sandler, but that could have been so
Speaker 1: many white guys like that could have been any other guy.
Speaker 1: He was really badly miscast in that role. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is by far the most random Adam Sandler movie. And
Speaker 1: it is like an Adam Sandler movie movie. He's like
Speaker 1: on the front of the he's like on the poster
Speaker 1: which is in the forefront. It's almost like distracting that
Speaker 1: he's in it at times because it's like the I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I thought it was interesting that like
Speaker 1: a man doesn't I don't think speak. For the first
Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes of this movie, like it's all Christina
Speaker 1: and floored, or it's like Deborah, deborahng out to her
Speaker 1: daughter and like it's all women talking, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like and here's Adam Sandler, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, I do we need it? I don't know. Uh, Caitly,
Speaker 1: what's your history of this movie? Oh my gosh, Well,
Speaker 1: I had not seen this movie before, so I had
Speaker 1: no emotional attachment to it. I was going in very fresh,
Speaker 1: and I am so sorry, but I hate shit. It's
Speaker 1: so much. I hate it. I think it's very bad.
Speaker 1: I have reasons here. They are. The storytelling is choppy.
Speaker 1: Every scene is overwritten, so so so overwritten. The editing
Speaker 1: and the pacing is very weird. The tone is very
Speaker 1: weird and inconsistent. The tone is confusing. I feel like
Speaker 1: the Hans Zimmer music was trying to like do some
Speaker 1: heavy lifting and like making it clearer how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to feel sometimes but right, it's a college essay. It's
Speaker 1: a weird like random voice of the framing devices is strange.
Speaker 1: I have never felt less compelled or convinced by a
Speaker 1: romance between two people on screen. There are different conflicts
Speaker 1: that are like set up and then just like dropped,
Speaker 1: like loose threads that get even looser and looser as
Speaker 1: the movie goes. And then all the reasons that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in the context of like our podcast, that
Speaker 1: I think are missteps. But I've never been so deeply
Speaker 1: bored by a movie in my entire life. God, Holy Ship,
Speaker 1: Coming in Hot, Coming in So sorry, but that is
Speaker 1: how I feel, and I have to speak my truth
Speaker 1: fair enough there. Honestly, some of the overwriting, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just like the tone gets bizarre at some point
Speaker 1: where it's like, also, I feel like removing Adam Sandler
Speaker 1: and like telling Taloni to take it down a couple
Speaker 1: of notches could have resolved the tone issues too, because
Speaker 1: there was some things that was like, I like Taloni
Speaker 1: was like was maybe not communicated with very effectively of
Speaker 1: like this isn't like you're not doing like a when
Speaker 1: Harry mets Tally Orcass in this that whole scene, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, blocked that out because I was like, you
Speaker 1: don't even need me the mother of two children right here,
Speaker 1: and then as she orgasm, she goes what which is
Speaker 1: like in another movie could have been pretty funny but
Speaker 1: in this movie was like, what is going on? Because
Speaker 1: then it cuts to like a pretty serious because I
Speaker 1: think that the takeaway from that seems supposed to be
Speaker 1: like they're not connecting. That's never before I thought the
Speaker 1: tone issues are kind of funny too. Um, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about it. Yeah, I'll do the recap and
Speaker 1: then we'll go from there. Okay. So there is this
Speaker 1: framing device where a young woman, Christina Moreno, has submitted
Speaker 1: a college Emissions essay about the story that we are
Speaker 1: about to see unfold, and then we get her voice
Speaker 1: over throughout the movie, which is like her reading this
Speaker 1: essay telling this story. So it begins with us meeting
Speaker 1: six year old Christina and her mother, Floored, played by
Speaker 1: pass Vega. They live in Mexico. Flora's husband has just
Speaker 1: left the family, so Florida decides to take Christina and
Speaker 1: immigrate to the US. They go to l A, Florida
Speaker 1: works a couple of jobs, then, after six years of
Speaker 1: living there, her cousin Monica sets her up with an
Speaker 1: interview for a higher paying job working as a housekeeper
Speaker 1: for the Klatsky family. Trouble is, Florida doesn't speak English,
Speaker 1: so Monica accompanies her to the interview to translate. During
Speaker 1: this interview, we meet Deborah that's Taloni, her daughter Bernie,
Speaker 1: Deborah's mother Evelyn played by Cloris Leachman. They're a well
Speaker 1: to do family in l A. Deborah's husband is her
Speaker 1: husband is a top chef, the top chef, and then
Speaker 1: they say like she She's like they do like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. James Brooks is like, I feel like he
Speaker 1: always gives me just enough that I'm like, God, I
Speaker 1: guess I can't be mad at him about that. I'll
Speaker 1: have to find something else, right, Like you find out
Speaker 1: that Deborah used to do something, but then something something
Speaker 1: Now she doesn't. Now she's a full time mom. She's
Speaker 1: like an interior decorator or something. Some design persons like
Speaker 1: a movie job. So Debora offers Floored the job. So
Speaker 1: she and Christina celebrate. Then Florida starts the job, which
Speaker 1: is when we meet John that's Adam Sandler. She starts working.
Speaker 1: There's definitely a language barrier between her and the family.
Speaker 1: Deborah is very high strung. She we see her get
Speaker 1: on her daughter's case about her weight, including when she
Speaker 1: buys clothes for Bernie that she knows are too small
Speaker 1: for her, and it hopes that they will motivate her
Speaker 1: to lose weight. Evil, horrible. Deborah is never like redeemed
Speaker 1: the whole time. She really a bad person. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: just like cartoon evil. Yeah, right, like and it kind
Speaker 1: of like it gets worse as the movie goes on.
Speaker 1: She gets worse and worse. I don't know. That thing
Speaker 1: to Bernie was like, I was like, that's worse than
Speaker 1: when she cheated on Adam Sandler as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: That was pure evil. Yeah, that was that was the
Speaker 1: worst thing. Who's that actress who plays Bernie. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen her in any she was I unfortunately, but it
Speaker 1: out myself as someone who has watched every episode of
Speaker 1: The Good Wife. She was on the she was she
Speaker 1: was the daughter on The Good Wife. Sarah Steele is
Speaker 1: her name. Yeah, So this obviously very much upsets both
Speaker 1: Bernie and John, but Deborah is all like John, we
Speaker 1: have to be on the same page as parents. So
Speaker 1: then John confides in Florida about this, even though she
Speaker 1: doesn't understand what he's saying, but she does understand why
Speaker 1: Bernie was upset, so she takes some of the clothes
Speaker 1: and alters them so that they will fit Bernie, and
Speaker 1: then has Christina teach her how to say just try
Speaker 1: it on in English so that she can tell Bernie
Speaker 1: to try on the jacket and she does and it fits.
Speaker 1: Then we get this whole sequence where this restaurant critic
Speaker 1: had come to John's restaurant and then he reads what
Speaker 1: turns out to be a very good review of his
Speaker 1: restaurant in the Times, and everyone in the family is
Speaker 1: super excited. And this is when we get that very
Speaker 1: weird sex scene between Adam Sandler and Talione where she's
Speaker 1: like screaming at the top of her lungs. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's even inside of her right because he's like
Speaker 1: he keeps saying, you can do this without me. That's
Speaker 1: false propaganda about how easy it is to makes one coom.
Speaker 1: That's also it's like, aren't their kids home? She's like
Speaker 1: screaming doors open during that the door is open. The
Speaker 1: kids were just right there reading the review like it's
Speaker 1: so confusing. Should have cut it? Should have cut it?
Speaker 1: Kind of glad they didn't, because it's just like, should
Speaker 1: have been cut, Like we already knew that the relationship
Speaker 1: wasn't working, Like, why did they do that? It's funny,
Speaker 1: I don't I think every scene should have been cut. Okay,
Speaker 1: the then Deborah rents a house in Malibu for the
Speaker 1: family to stay in for the summer, and she wants
Speaker 1: Floor to stay with them as well, which at first
Speaker 1: she refuses because she doesn't want to leave her daughter,
Speaker 1: Christina behind, But then Deborah is like, no, your daughter
Speaker 1: can live here too, So Florida and Christina move into
Speaker 1: this rental home for the summer, which some drama ensues
Speaker 1: from there, where Florida is mad that Deborah took Christina
Speaker 1: shopping and to get her hair done without telling floored. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there's this whole thing with John offering to pay
Speaker 1: the kids to find sea glass, which Christina finds a
Speaker 1: bunch of and then he pays her like over six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for it, and then Florida calls him out
Speaker 1: for meddling in her daughter's life. I mean, he should
Speaker 1: have told Florida that that was like that he was
Speaker 1: giving her like rent money. I was like, you can't
Speaker 1: just give a thirteen year old six hundred dollars. What
Speaker 1: will they do? Yeah? Right, Yeah, that was kind of perverted. Yah,
Speaker 1: So she calls him out, and then he calls her
Speaker 1: out for meddling in his daughter's life when she altered
Speaker 1: Bernie's clothes. Also, Christina is translating for both of them
Speaker 1: during this scene because Florida still does not speak English.
Speaker 1: And then Florida is you're right, I am a hypocrite
Speaker 1: and John is like, wow, it's so cool that you
Speaker 1: admit that you agree with me, and that you admit
Speaker 1: it's so cool when you tell me I'm right. And
Speaker 1: then this is the beginning of what seems like it
Speaker 1: might be a romance between them. And then this is
Speaker 1: also when Flora starts to learn English, which she appears
Speaker 1: to do in a week. It's like the summers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like yeah, but she's already been there for a while
Speaker 1: and it just seems like she learns she becomes fluent
Speaker 1: in English very fast. I do like the scene where
Speaker 1: her and what's Evelyn Evelyn's chorus? Leachman is that her name? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do like when I like on the couch and
Speaker 1: she's like holding a glass of wine and repeating English
Speaker 1: words with her because she's just like wasted. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: had a totally false memory of this movie. That was
Speaker 1: like ended up being way too kind to the movie
Speaker 1: that in my memory of this movie, I was like, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Adam Sandler also learns some Spanish, but that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Oh no, don't. No one in the Klatskey family learns
Speaker 1: a single word of Spanish. It doesn't come up. Okay,
Speaker 1: So she is learning English and then one night John
Speaker 1: comes home really drunk and it seems like he's trying
Speaker 1: to flirt with Flora. Deborra is out somewhere. It seems
Speaker 1: like she's kind of sneaking around. We're not really sure
Speaker 1: what's going on there. And then Debora gets Christina a
Speaker 1: scholarship at a private school where Bernie goes, and Flora
Speaker 1: feels weird about it, as if you know, Deborrah is
Speaker 1: still meddling in her daughter's life, which she is, And
Speaker 1: then Flora talks to John about it and they bond
Speaker 1: a bit over that. Then one night, Debora confesses to
Speaker 1: John that she's been having an affair and John leaves
Speaker 1: the else and as he's leaving, he takes Florida with him, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, she was there to quit her job
Speaker 1: working for them. They keep gas lighting this poor woman
Speaker 1: into not quitting her job that she wants to quit
Speaker 1: sop A Headley, Yeah, yes, so much manipulation from everybody.
Speaker 1: And then so John is like, hey, Florida, do you
Speaker 1: want to hang out? And she's like, I guess. So
Speaker 1: then he takes her to his restaurant and he's like,
Speaker 1: you're beautiful, and then they kiss and then they talk
Speaker 1: all night. He says they should name a gender after you,
Speaker 1: but also he has that hair what he's saying, they
Speaker 1: should name agenda after you. Like, he's also like periodically
Speaker 1: screaming throughout the movie. He's like, if I can't even
Speaker 1: look at you right now, I quit this job. I
Speaker 1: feel this is like this is like an early dramatic
Speaker 1: turn for Adam Stanley, right because he did that Paul
Speaker 1: Thomas Anderson movie that everyone loves the name that I
Speaker 1: don't remember, Punch Drunk Glove, Punch Drunk Glove. Everyone loved
Speaker 1: his dramatic turn and Punch Runk Clove. And then I
Speaker 1: think people were maybe like because that movie was from
Speaker 1: two thousand two, and I think everyone's like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: he could probably do any part, but the answer was no,
Speaker 1: he can just scream. He can do punch Drunk glove
Speaker 1: and he can do Hube Halloween. He can be Hube Halloween,
Speaker 1: and he can do I keep wanting to say, the
Speaker 1: righteous gems, uncut gems. He can do um slunt gems
Speaker 1: and all the other ones. Stinky, stinky, stinky. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: they should name it gender after you. So he's all like,
Speaker 1: you're beautiful, and they kiss and they're talking and then
Speaker 1: Florida is like I love you, and we're like what,
Speaker 1: And then Florida runs away, and then the next day
Speaker 1: she tells Christina and the rest of the Classkey family
Speaker 1: that she quits, and there's this big, tearful goodbye. Flora
Speaker 1: says goodbye to John and they leave, and Christina is
Speaker 1: really mad at Floora for quitting and pulling her out
Speaker 1: of this private school. But then Christina soon forgives her
Speaker 1: mother and understands that everything she does is for Christina.
Speaker 1: And that's the end of this movie. That doesn't have
Speaker 1: a plot, not but that's the story. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss
Speaker 1: and we're back. Does anyone want to start any particular
Speaker 1: place with this movie? We know Caitlin does not like
Speaker 1: I'm curious us to know. I want to hear more
Speaker 1: about like your experience, Melissa watching this as a younger
Speaker 1: person with your family, and like the connection you had
Speaker 1: to it culturally and things like that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think when I first saw it, it was like okay,
Speaker 1: two thousand four, so I was like, oh my God,
Speaker 1: like represent Tacion. Like I think my mom was really
Speaker 1: emotional about it, as I said before, like my older
Speaker 1: sister would like translate around for her, and like my
Speaker 1: mom would like clean houses. I mean, watching it now,
Speaker 1: there are a bit of things that are like slightly
Speaker 1: two dimensional about the Moreno family, I guess, but I
Speaker 1: think it's still pretty good about like class and like xenophobia.
Speaker 1: I was like surprised at how good of it it
Speaker 1: was in two thousand four. And I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think like Christina in particular, really like I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been that like young Latin child where these like
Speaker 1: scary white ladies like see a lot of things in me.
Speaker 1: And I really think that the movie takes this like
Speaker 1: almost radical turn where she's like, oh no, like I'm
Speaker 1: taking my daughter away from this, like she can do
Speaker 1: she can be successful in this country without assimilating or
Speaker 1: being like like being part of whiteness. And I think
Speaker 1: that's I also like always fucking lose my ship when
Speaker 1: she says I stand firmly in my identity, like relies
Speaker 1: on one thing, and that is I am my mother's daughter.
Speaker 1: Kills me. It kills me. Um. Yeah, that makes sense
Speaker 1: and that that all attracts to me, and I think
Speaker 1: that is the movies one striketh um. But yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that pinned me was just
Speaker 1: that for the first half of the movie, Florida is
Speaker 1: like not really the focus. She isn't given Like so
Speaker 1: many of the scenes revolve and so much of the
Speaker 1: tension and conflict revolve around this white family. Even though
Speaker 1: Florida is the protagonist, she's framed as the protagonist of
Speaker 1: this movie. And I just feel like, if you're going
Speaker 1: to tell a story about an immigrant woman from Mexico
Speaker 1: coming to the US with her young daughter and kind
Speaker 1: of grappling with this, like do I make an effort
Speaker 1: to learn this new culture and language and assimilate or
Speaker 1: do I maintain my my cultural identity from Mexico and
Speaker 1: all these things that an immigrant has to deal with
Speaker 1: and think about. I cannot think of a more boring
Speaker 1: version of this story than this movie, where like she
Speaker 1: isn't even the focus for the first half of the movie,
Speaker 1: and then when she does start to become the focus,
Speaker 1: it's it's because she's learning English and is now better
Speaker 1: able to communicate with this rich white family and then
Speaker 1: is falling in love with Adam Sandler, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: I I definitely felt like this movie, like kept rewrote, like,
Speaker 1: I think that there's an argument that the actually, like
Speaker 1: this movie was marketed as Adam Sandler being the protagonist.
Speaker 1: The introduction to the movie wants you to believe that
Speaker 1: Flora is the protagonist, but then the way the movie
Speaker 1: plays out, you're like, it could be Deborah. Also like
Speaker 1: there's like it is kind of confusing this is Deborah
Speaker 1: story and the story beginning middle an end is Deborah
Speaker 1: sucks like she's terrible. But I yeah, I felt like
Speaker 1: there were some creative traces that I wanted to, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, just get everyone's opinions on, because I
Speaker 1: also felt like not even I mean, it feels like
Speaker 1: we're not spending enough time with Florida from much of
Speaker 1: the second act, but also like I felt like James L.
Speaker 1: Brooks and I like read some interviews with him, and
Speaker 1: his choice is to not include subtitles in this movie
Speaker 1: was like very very deliberate. He didn't want there to
Speaker 1: be subtitles. Yeah, and I I mean, I do not
Speaker 1: speak Spanish, and I felt like not letting us know
Speaker 1: what Florida was saying was like putting the audience in
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know. It just like it was
Speaker 1: creating distance between me and like the protagonist, who I
Speaker 1: want to know what she's saying. I want to know
Speaker 1: what she's feeling, but I don't know. I just found
Speaker 1: that to be kind of like a frustrating experience because
Speaker 1: the performance is so good and there's like a lot
Speaker 1: in the story that I wish was like focused on more,
Speaker 1: But it just felt like there was like this this
Speaker 1: distance created between I guess me and the movie that
Speaker 1: I wish wasn't there. That is so weird because it
Speaker 1: does seem to be like a movie made for like
Speaker 1: white American audiences, so like the decision should not put
Speaker 1: subtitles in, it's like, let's like for there, make this
Speaker 1: woman like it's like put her on this like weird
Speaker 1: ethnic pedestal where she's kind of like mute, almost like
Speaker 1: and just like miming all the time. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like it's like yeah it was again and not that
Speaker 1: every movie should cater to my exact like the languages
Speaker 1: that I speak, but but particularly because it's like a
Speaker 1: movie by like a legacy white guy. I was like
Speaker 1: why did you do this? Like yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: why is he the one to tell this story? Like
Speaker 1: who who is James L. Brooks to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: who knows exactly what it is to be a woman
Speaker 1: from Mexico immigrating to the US? Me James L. Brooks,
Speaker 1: Like like yeah, well, I'm thinking like this movie is
Speaker 1: like a really good like case study on whiteness in
Speaker 1: the same way maybe the White Lotus is because like
Speaker 1: the person who made it, like who knows whiteness better
Speaker 1: than James L. Brooks maybe you know, or or the
Speaker 1: same thing with like I mean, Roma is a movie
Speaker 1: in Mexico, but it's about like white Mexicans. And then
Speaker 1: you're like realizing that like Mexicans can be white because
Speaker 1: you're seeing it's like in black and white and you're
Speaker 1: seeing like how much darker skinned the indigenous like Housekeeper is.
Speaker 1: But like that movie was made by someone who like
Speaker 1: grew up rich and white in Mexico and was like,
Speaker 1: I want to examine and like interrogate this. So I
Speaker 1: feel like the class keys are really like three dimensional
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I feel like I know people like this.
Speaker 1: And then Flood like her family, you just see them
Speaker 1: like in like two minute births, like eating to Molly's right, right,
Speaker 1: it's like you don't spend any time with her family, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you spend so much time with the yeah, right
Speaker 1: in the few scenes early on where you would get
Speaker 1: some insight into Flora's life, like when she's communicating with
Speaker 1: her daughter or her cousin Monica or something like that.
Speaker 1: Because the movie isn't subtitled, it makes it kind of
Speaker 1: unaccessible to your average American movie going audience member, which again,
Speaker 1: it's not as though every movie needs to cater to
Speaker 1: that person, but James L. Brooks movies do, so it's
Speaker 1: just like confusing. Yeah, when you're releasing a James L.
Speaker 1: Brooks movie into the US, like chances are you're again
Speaker 1: average member of the audience speaks one language and it's English.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that it was an interesting choice that I
Speaker 1: don't think was super effective and only served to yeah,
Speaker 1: just sort of like other floor more and not let
Speaker 1: the audience get to know her and like understand what
Speaker 1: she's dealing with and when she's going through. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've always been like, um, like this is like the
Speaker 1: fifth time I've watched this movie, and I'm always like
Speaker 1: struck by how Florida is just such like a I
Speaker 1: don't know this like Mexican sage who has she like
Speaker 1: embodies like the best qualities of like a woman, which
Speaker 1: is like like she's like the best mother and she's
Speaker 1: like hervacious and she's sensitive and kind and like like
Speaker 1: her personality is being like a womb like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's very mommy. She's very mommy. She's so huge mommy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I did I mean going back to where you started, Melissa,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that like the relationship with Florida
Speaker 1: and Christina is like so like that's one of the
Speaker 1: most effective parts of the movie and anytime there's and
Speaker 1: also just like the chemistry between those two actors was
Speaker 1: so good and I wish, like there are so many
Speaker 1: threads in this movie that were more interesting to me
Speaker 1: than And it's not like I didn't want her to
Speaker 1: have love, like I I also like whatever, like it's
Speaker 1: MS and I, and to an extent, I do understand
Speaker 1: what she and Adam Sandler saw in each other if
Speaker 1: I really thought about it. I'm glad that the movie
Speaker 1: is kind of like, well, obviously this is going to
Speaker 1: work out because um, yeah, she's too good for and
Speaker 1: he's a mess. But I mean I did see what
Speaker 1: they saw in each other, but it just it felt
Speaker 1: like the I really enjoyed scenes with Florida and Christina
Speaker 1: and Florida and Bernie. I wish that you got more
Speaker 1: with like Christina and Bernie. I thought that there was
Speaker 1: like probably a cool dynamic there that you never really
Speaker 1: got to see. There were some elements of Deborah that
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is like a good opportunity to
Speaker 1: you know, interrogate whiteness and interrogate white women. And she
Speaker 1: very very clearly, and the movie seems to know like
Speaker 1: that she thinks that she is like the queen of
Speaker 1: wokeness and is doing the right thing at all points,
Speaker 1: when in fact, she can be extreme condescending. She'll shut
Speaker 1: down conflict, she'll tell people how they feel. She's very entitled,
Speaker 1: like all this stuff that is like, you know, very
Speaker 1: worth exploring and then but then in other moments she
Speaker 1: would be a cartoon character, and then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: so what does she did, Like what are you trying
Speaker 1: to say with her? Because no one like in some
Speaker 1: scenes it was like, oh, she's like, I mean, like
Speaker 1: whatever carening out before that was a popular term, and
Speaker 1: then in other scenes, you're like, nobody has acted like
Speaker 1: this in the history of the world, So like, what
Speaker 1: do you not say every time you have an orgasm?
Speaker 1: And then she like passed out like it was so
Speaker 1: when she starts to cry, that scene was bananas. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like whatever, I'm absolutely flabbergasted by that sex scene.
Speaker 1: All of the Adam Sandler reactions too, were like horrible,
Speaker 1: Like the whole movie, He's made those noises. It's like
Speaker 1: he just can't believe it. That's but you know, Jamie're right,
Speaker 1: like this could have This movie could have been an
Speaker 1: interesting opportunity to examine and criticize what a lot of
Speaker 1: like rich white people do to marginalized communities, and especially
Speaker 1: someone that they kind of like Deborah clearly see like
Speaker 1: to her floor is like the help, you know, like
Speaker 1: she's like she's so condescending to her she never makes
Speaker 1: any effort to learn Spanish, like just it's this weird
Speaker 1: power dynamic that could and should be examined and interrogated,
Speaker 1: and the movie, I think does try to do that
Speaker 1: to some extent, but where it lands, I'm just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the takeaway here? Exactly? Like Also, like one of
Speaker 1: the many dropped threads of this movie was also between
Speaker 1: like trying to contextualize who Debora is and why she
Speaker 1: is the way she is, which honestly I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was like completely necessary, but they try to be like, well,
Speaker 1: her mother, like she's the child of an alcoholic, and
Speaker 1: the movie tries to like contextualize her like hyper insecurity
Speaker 1: through that lens, which is like, okay, I see, like
Speaker 1: I thought it was super under explored, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of ended in a joke or Cloris Leachman is
Speaker 1: like I see what you're saying, but like shut up,
Speaker 1: and that was the end of like that. But also
Speaker 1: it seems to like conflate all this stuff, like she's like, yes,
Speaker 1: Deborah's character is very insecure, and it is she is
Speaker 1: like weaponizing that insecurity against everyone in her life, but
Speaker 1: like her being the child of an alcoholic is not
Speaker 1: making her racist like that, you know, like like deeply classist,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's like conflating all of those
Speaker 1: issues with like, well she's very insecure. You're like, well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on that's not right with Debra,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, Yeah, I feel like if the
Speaker 1: movie could have been so much more about mothers and daughters.
Speaker 1: It's like that's like my favorite part of it, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, between Flood and Christina and like and then
Speaker 1: also seeing like how the last generation is like dealing
Speaker 1: with all of their mothers shit, you know, right, that
Speaker 1: is a really good point that could have been the
Speaker 1: focus of the movie, where it's like you have these
Speaker 1: two sets of like mother daughter dynamics with Florida and
Speaker 1: Christina and what they are dealing with as they navigate
Speaker 1: the world, and then what are Debra and Bernie dealing
Speaker 1: with as they navigate the world in there like much
Speaker 1: more privileged position, and like an exploration of those dynamics
Speaker 1: and how there are like similarities and differences between these
Speaker 1: two pairs of people and like what might that look
Speaker 1: like and what could that mean? And there's a lot
Speaker 1: to explore there that could have been interesting and again
Speaker 1: I think that the movie tries to start exploring something,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to this thing where Deborah is
Speaker 1: hounding her daughter to lose weight, which is terrible, a
Speaker 1: horrible thing for her to be doing. It's affecting Bernie
Speaker 1: very significantly. It's affecting her husband because her husband hates
Speaker 1: to see her treat her daughter that way. But then
Speaker 1: that thread just kind of gets dropped and then there's
Speaker 1: not that just like isn't part of the movie after
Speaker 1: a while, so her daughter never gets to like heal
Speaker 1: from that or like instead, I mean Florida like makes
Speaker 1: her clothes bigger, and then that's I think supposed to be.
Speaker 1: It is like the lesson. They're like, okay, if you're
Speaker 1: if someone should be nice to you, Yeah, that takeaway
Speaker 1: is confusing. And then a little I guess a little
Speaker 1: bit later, Deborah really takes an interest in Christina, and
Speaker 1: it almost and like sort of treating her as if like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the daughter I wish I had, because she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, taking her shopping and taking her to get
Speaker 1: her hair done and like all this stuff that I
Speaker 1: think it's clear that Bernie would like to do with
Speaker 1: her mom. But because she doesn't like fit the image
Speaker 1: that Deborah has for what she wants her daughter to be.
Speaker 1: She instead takes this interest in Christina, and it's just
Speaker 1: like that's like such a devastating thing for Bernie to
Speaker 1: have to deal with. And then that also just doesn't
Speaker 1: really get explored. She's like fucking everyone over in that scene.
Speaker 1: That was like, I was like, wow, this character is
Speaker 1: playing like a game of for d chest of making
Speaker 1: everyone unhappy, because I mean, it's exciting for Christina in
Speaker 1: the moment, but also it's like Debor is just so
Speaker 1: deeply selfish and everything she's doing there, I feel like
Speaker 1: she she seems to like take this like real pleasure
Speaker 1: and exerting control, over flow and like over feeling entitled
Speaker 1: to her life in a way that the movie seems
Speaker 1: aware of. But it just yeah, like it doesn't really
Speaker 1: land anywhere. They're just sort of like, yeah, this lady's
Speaker 1: fucked up, but like she like rejects her daughter, and
Speaker 1: so it's like painful for Bernie to see that. Christina
Speaker 1: isn't at a point at this point in the movie
Speaker 1: where she understands that this like rich lady is exerting
Speaker 1: her power over her for maybe not a completely altruistic
Speaker 1: reason obviously, and she's like just showing how she can
Speaker 1: control Flor's life again, Like that was so uh it
Speaker 1: bothered me so much, like Devra sucks so bad. She
Speaker 1: sucks so bad. I wonder if like her redemption is
Speaker 1: supposed to be wrapped up and how at the end
Speaker 1: she just says, I'm so glad that you came back,
Speaker 1: like that's supposed to and it's like she's like giving
Speaker 1: giving something I don't know, like she's like doing something
Speaker 1: like not selfish for once, but like that's like the
Speaker 1: other thing too, is like the where I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't really want to talk about the
Speaker 1: white lotus, but but like I think that that's like
Speaker 1: an interesting parallel to draw here of like I get
Speaker 1: like and it's kind of like a wash, but especially
Speaker 1: because James L. Brooks is a white guy trying to
Speaker 1: write a story about a marginalized character and about mother
Speaker 1: daughter relationships. You know, it's not against the law. It
Speaker 1: is certainly like we should like keep talking about it
Speaker 1: because he misses some stuff. And I thought one of
Speaker 1: the bigger misses, outside of clearly having more interest in
Speaker 1: the white characters in his movie than the Mexican characters
Speaker 1: that he claims that the movie is about. He also
Speaker 1: seems to like let John off for it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: Debra is the dev all, She's the most evil person
Speaker 1: and like all the sins of richness and whiteness are
Speaker 1: characteristics that she exhibits. And then John's just kind of
Speaker 1: like this amazing guy. It's like it's like, well that's
Speaker 1: not real, Like what, yeah, it's never examined to how
Speaker 1: like maybe his career like made Deborah feel insignificant, like
Speaker 1: because she keeps being like who am I? I don't
Speaker 1: know who I am? And he's like, I got too
Speaker 1: many stars on my my kitchen review, I'm too good
Speaker 1: of a cook. God would be the same. And he
Speaker 1: keeps like acting like he I don't know, Like as
Speaker 1: he and floors, connection is like deepening. He keeps kind
Speaker 1: of being like, I'm sorry about Deborah. There's really I
Speaker 1: wish I could do something, And it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: probably could do something, like why don't you try to
Speaker 1: do I? Like it's like the Remolt. There are a
Speaker 1: few different scenes where it's like the movie is just
Speaker 1: like really trying to make him out to be this
Speaker 1: like sweetheart, romantic hero who like I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: like yeah, and the John character is like I don't know.
Speaker 1: There were some scenes where I was like, I see
Speaker 1: what they see in each other, but then another scenes
Speaker 1: I was like, he's creepy and he keeps trying to
Speaker 1: talk to her while he's really drunk, Like yuh yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get into this, but let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break first and then we'll come right back and
Speaker 1: we're back. So yeah, the romance between Florida and John
Speaker 1: this movie, like Bushevy, tests itself interestingly enough because he
Speaker 1: looks like creepy? Uh do I want to rename it?
Speaker 1: But it basically just like if you swap out the
Speaker 1: like a supposedly romantic behavior that like a traditionally hot
Speaker 1: guy is exhibiting in a movie, and you switch it
Speaker 1: out with Steve bush Emy, would it be creepy? And
Speaker 1: if it would be really creepy, then it fails the
Speaker 1: test and it's a creepy interaction. So yeah, Like, so
Speaker 1: a picture like The Notebook and instead of Ryan Gosling
Speaker 1: like stalking Rachel McAdams, if it's Steve bush Emmy, is
Speaker 1: it now much more clear that this behavior is extremely
Speaker 1: creepy and stalkery. And if you clear, Steve Bishmmy is hot.
Speaker 1: But just in terms of like that's how we've characterized
Speaker 1: the test over the years. A listener had pitched, I
Speaker 1: think instead of Steve wish Emmy Gritty the mascot for
Speaker 1: that the Philadelphia is that the Philadelphia? Yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: gritty test. Like, yeah, if you just like switch out,
Speaker 1: that is maybe better because it's like, you know, Steve
Speaker 1: Bishemy is hot. But yeah, this like until we come
Speaker 1: up for a with a better name for that test,
Speaker 1: this movie fails that and also like Out of Sailor
Speaker 1: like looks and behaves kind of creepy for the whole movie,
Speaker 1: so you don't even really need to like stretch your imagination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like John supposed to be bashful, but instead
Speaker 1: he's just like about to explode all the time, or
Speaker 1: he's just like is or is the same behavior as
Speaker 1: when you're like hiding a Boner's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: he's just like he's not giving me stability. He's not
Speaker 1: He has so many weird outbursts that I think are
Speaker 1: supposed to be comedic, but I'm just like, again, the
Speaker 1: tone is so weird that I'm like, I was I
Speaker 1: supposed to laugh at that? I don't know, but she's
Speaker 1: like charmed. She's ching right, It's so confusing. Okay, So here,
Speaker 1: as far as what I could tell, here is kind
Speaker 1: of the trajectory of this romance between Floda and John.
Speaker 1: So it starts where John is giving her a ride
Speaker 1: to the bus stop. He is crying because you saw
Speaker 1: how his wife had just treated their daughter about like
Speaker 1: you know, buying her those closer too small and be
Speaker 1: waiting for her for her weight, and it really affects John,
Speaker 1: and Florida is like impressed that he seems to be
Speaker 1: emotionally open and vulnerable. There's voiceover from Christina saying it's
Speaker 1: it's like the opposite of the like quote Latin macho
Speaker 1: that Florida is used to and that he seems to
Speaker 1: quote have the emotions of a Mexican woman. Where obviously
Speaker 1: that framing is not great, but James L. Brooks wrote
Speaker 1: that down like yeah, he was like yes, cut and print.
Speaker 1: I like when he's wiping his tears away with the
Speaker 1: seat belt, that's funny. That was kind of funny. It's
Speaker 1: like their above is in this movie that are like
Speaker 1: and definitely the right kind of funny for the kind
Speaker 1: of movie. It was, yeah, at least yeah, closer than
Speaker 1: the than the orgasm scene. True, So this didn't bother
Speaker 1: me because, well, aside from the way that some of
Speaker 1: this voiceover is written, but the fact that Florida is
Speaker 1: impressed and intrigued by John's emotional openness and vulnerability is
Speaker 1: like something that we should as a society value more
Speaker 1: in men, especially because men are so conditioned to be
Speaker 1: emotionally repressed and withdrawn and all this stuff. So that
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I understand that is a reason
Speaker 1: why Florida would be interested. And also I thought that
Speaker 1: that even though it was like another threat that I
Speaker 1: felt like it was dropped, that felt like a really
Speaker 1: like setting something up for for Florida and Christina that
Speaker 1: just kind of went away. But that opening scene where
Speaker 1: you find out that Florida is not very emotionally open
Speaker 1: and she's like pushing tears back at the Christina's a being,
Speaker 1: and like I thought, I was like, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like not even able to like show her emotional
Speaker 1: vulnerability in front of her daughter, She like runs out
Speaker 1: of the room if she starts to cry so that
Speaker 1: her daughter can't see her be emotional, and then at
Speaker 1: the end she cries finally she doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: like her. I wish that there was like I just
Speaker 1: wish that we got to know more about Florida. I
Speaker 1: feel like that moment should have like I mean, it's
Speaker 1: still hit from me because I just have a lot
Speaker 1: of it, just like mommy, Like yeah, it's like that's
Speaker 1: the way that the love story worked for me. Was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: they see things. I mean like she sees an emotional
Speaker 1: vulnerability in him that she can't do herself, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that is very attractive sometimes where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, look at you expressing yourself. I can't
Speaker 1: do that. Imagine if I, yeah, give me a little kiss.
Speaker 1: Their main thing is like how they they like bond
Speaker 1: over how they want to be parents, I guess, And
Speaker 1: also I guess that's how sometimes people get together. I
Speaker 1: don't know, they like love their kids and they hate
Speaker 1: Deborah and that's enough to build a relationship on right,
Speaker 1: Because there's that scene where they're on the beach and
Speaker 1: Florida confides in John because she's like, hey, it seems
Speaker 1: like your wife is kind of like meddling in my
Speaker 1: daughter's life. And he's like, yeah, I feel really weird
Speaker 1: about it too, And then she says something like I've
Speaker 1: never met a man who can put himself in my
Speaker 1: place like you do. And I was a little unclear.
Speaker 1: I was like, does she mean like put But I
Speaker 1: think what she means is like put himself in her
Speaker 1: shoes and like empathize and understand where she's coming from, right, Okay?
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, that's also like a compelling
Speaker 1: reason to have an emotional connection that tracks for me.
Speaker 1: But then he also immediately after that, she's like standing
Speaker 1: in the on like the windy beach, and then he
Speaker 1: screams at her. He's like get out of the wind.
Speaker 1: And it's like what is like? So there's weird stuff
Speaker 1: like that, And then to me, the kind of the
Speaker 1: final beat that makes us know like oh wow, like yep,
Speaker 1: they're falling in love is a scene that does not
Speaker 1: work for me. Where they're arguing. She's calling him out
Speaker 1: for giving her daughter that money without consulting her first,
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, you're a hypocrite because you meddled
Speaker 1: in my daughter's life by altering the jacket and she's like, Yep,
Speaker 1: you're right. I'm a hypocrite. I also interfered there's no difference, Um,
Speaker 1: you're right, and he's like, I'm horny. What you're not
Speaker 1: arguing with me, you're telling me that I'm right. I
Speaker 1: like disagree with that. I do think it's different. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like there's there's like multiple points where they're
Speaker 1: like that completely ignores like the power dynamic that exists
Speaker 1: between the two of them, that like ignores the tent
Speaker 1: behind what they were trying to do. It ignores like
Speaker 1: the like gravity of the task where it's like and
Speaker 1: like the gendered nature of the task, like yeah, sewing
Speaker 1: versus like he's like the man of the house who
Speaker 1: provides for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I was like,
Speaker 1: I I appreciate about how Flora's character is written that
Speaker 1: she is very clear about what her values are, like
Speaker 1: she will not accept a violation of about well she
Speaker 1: does because she's repeatedly pressured to not quit the job,
Speaker 1: but she's willing to communicate like, hey, that wasn't okay
Speaker 1: with me, do not do that again, which is great,
Speaker 1: But then also yeah, and that scene knows like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't give up that point it is different. It is different, yes,
Speaker 1: And then something very weird to me happens where when
Speaker 1: he takes her to his restaurant and he's saying, I
Speaker 1: love you, You're beautiful, let's kiss each other. They we
Speaker 1: should name Agender after you. She at that point does
Speaker 1: not know that Deborah was cheating on John, so as
Speaker 1: far as she knows, their marriage is fine. And she's
Speaker 1: written to be the type of person who would not
Speaker 1: interfere in a marriage and like not be willing to
Speaker 1: kiss him or engage with him in any romantic way,
Speaker 1: because I mean, maybe I'm misreading her character. Again, we
Speaker 1: don't know that much about her, but I feel like,
Speaker 1: but we do know, she would be like, no, you're married,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna engage with this. But instead she she
Speaker 1: kisses him, and then she's like they, you know, canoodle
Speaker 1: all night, and then she says I love you. And
Speaker 1: it's like, first of all, I understand you like admiring
Speaker 1: him for a few different things he said and done
Speaker 1: over the movie, but like, you love this guy. Okay.
Speaker 1: It makes me so sad for her. I'm like, all
Speaker 1: these men in your life must suck, right, if this
Speaker 1: is the wather you're like, this is the most scene
Speaker 1: I've ever felt. You're like, no, we gotta. But it
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense that she was engaging with this
Speaker 1: like romantic moment because again, she seems to me like
Speaker 1: the person type of person who would be like, no,
Speaker 1: you're married and I work for you. Also like this
Speaker 1: is inappropriate, like you're my employer, your wife is my employer,
Speaker 1: Like this is not appropriate, and instead she's like kiss, kiss,
Speaker 1: I love you. And then she's like I have to quit, right,
Speaker 1: and then like she has to give up her livelihood.
Speaker 1: It's not fair, like yeah, like bay start, I feel
Speaker 1: like based on what we know about this character, like
Speaker 1: it's just I don't know. And then the way that
Speaker 1: it felt like every reference to Latin manhood and masculinity
Speaker 1: was so written by James L. Brooks. It really hated
Speaker 1: Latin men. Yeah, except for that goofy guy who was
Speaker 1: like all translate forever when he looks at her bullies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, was this a call back to the
Speaker 1: Selena movie where someone was like anything for Selena's It's
Speaker 1: that It's really felt like that. Oh yeah it does
Speaker 1: kind of, yeah it does, right, But yeah, I felt
Speaker 1: like the James L. Brooks writing kept in moments where
Speaker 1: he couldn't think of a way to make John seemed
Speaker 1: like a viable romantic interest. There would just be a
Speaker 1: voice over line that was like punching down at Latin
Speaker 1: men and Latin masculinity to be like, so, of course
Speaker 1: it makes sense that you would want to date this guy.
Speaker 1: It's like it just wasn't right necessary additors, like it
Speaker 1: just wasn't necessary. I'm nervous about how formative this movie
Speaker 1: was for the people I date. I'm like, I was like, yeah, damn,
Speaker 1: I just like listened to it. I only date like explosive,
Speaker 1: sensitive white men. It's a bad vibe, bad horrible vibes.
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks, What the hell James Brooks has to
Speaker 1: sent you a personalized college application of apology? That framing
Speaker 1: device of this movie, I mean, it does it does?
Speaker 1: It did make me cry. So there did cry. I
Speaker 1: did cry. I'm I'm laughing. And here's why I'm laughing
Speaker 1: because Christina laughing like Teleoni happy an Orgasa. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: I'm laughing because like Christina's college admission essay as about
Speaker 1: this or which is her mother's affair, Mother's like the
Speaker 1: weird like this weird moment in her mother's life that
Speaker 1: like kind of doesn't really have anything to do with anything,
Speaker 1: Like it's just like I think it's a very like
Speaker 1: how I Met your mother kind of framing device. We
Speaker 1: were like, no child would have this deep and interest
Speaker 1: in their parents sex lives. Gross. But who is she
Speaker 1: the Olsen twins trying to get her their dad to
Speaker 1: hook up with somebody fieldboard dad reference. I love it. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a quick thing, but one that it was
Speaker 1: like I paused the movie and did some math, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't encouraging math. This scene where Deborah and Flora
Speaker 1: and um what is her cousin's name, Monica all meet
Speaker 1: for the job interview. First of all, I think that
Speaker 1: I think that someone already said this, but like Monica
Speaker 1: should have just been a character in the movie like
Speaker 1: that we saw with regularity, like to give their lives
Speaker 1: like more shape and death ended. She was just I mean,
Speaker 1: like I really enjoyed the actress who played her, But
Speaker 1: that scene where Florida is negotiating a salary, I was
Speaker 1: trying to put myself in two thousand four brains and
Speaker 1: it's still like not very helpful. Where you know, we
Speaker 1: were told that she and Christina need four fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a week to survive, which is what they're doing. And
Speaker 1: then when Deborah asks what do you want? And then
Speaker 1: kind of like Cheryl Sandberg's for a second, and it's
Speaker 1: like you gotta ask her what is worth but you
Speaker 1: can't ask for more than you're worth it then you're
Speaker 1: a bitch or like whatever. She said, like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: taking advantage, right, So so she's like being Cheryl Sandberg.
Speaker 1: And then I think it's Floorda who says a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a week, which is like and then she's like
Speaker 1: that's a joke, just kidding, joke, Like it's the joke,
Speaker 1: but she's being asked to work a seventy two hour
Speaker 1: a week. That's like not unreasonable, Like it just if
Speaker 1: you break that down, because I I like went back
Speaker 1: and rewatched the scene and crunch some numbers where Tleoni
Speaker 1: was like, I need you to work six days a week,
Speaker 1: twelve hours a day. How much do you want per week?
Speaker 1: One thousand dollars a week. What she ends up getting
Speaker 1: a six fifty a week, which that math boils down
Speaker 1: to about nine dollars an hour. So okay, wait, one
Speaker 1: thousand to find it by seventy two. That would be
Speaker 1: less than fourteen dollars an hour for one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a week. So it's like this bizarro like joke that
Speaker 1: James Albrooks is making it Like how dare like Flora
Speaker 1: asked for one thousand dollars a week? Is like still
Speaker 1: underneath it's and I know, like two thousand four many
Speaker 1: is is a little different for money, but like not
Speaker 1: by much. And for a movie that's so invested in
Speaker 1: talking about class, it seems it's it seems really like
Speaker 1: I don't know, off, Yeah, why isn't that Also if
Speaker 1: she is working somewhere between like eight and twelve hours
Speaker 1: a day and it seems like Florida is there a
Speaker 1: lot because we only ever see her there really and
Speaker 1: never in her home with Christina, that also could be
Speaker 1: something you mind for tension and conflict, Like what is
Speaker 1: Florida working twelve hour days, six days a week? What
Speaker 1: is that doing to her relationship with her daughter? Like
Speaker 1: she's hardly going to be home then for her? And
Speaker 1: like what does like can we explore that and like
Speaker 1: examine that? But the movie again doesn't really have any
Speaker 1: interest in in her interior life and the motivation for
Speaker 1: her to work one job is just because her she
Speaker 1: saw a boy like touch her daughter's ass, right, and
Speaker 1: then it was like, but you're not at home that
Speaker 1: much still, right, and you're community Like the commutes seemed
Speaker 1: pretty severe back and forth. The commute seems awful. A
Speaker 1: mile to the bus stop. Why? And then I'm guessing, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't ever learn what neighborhood Florida and Christina live
Speaker 1: in in l A. But it's probably pretty far from
Speaker 1: the very upscale neighborhood that the class keys live in.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like there, I mean, whatever, now
Speaker 1: we're just getting into l A talk. But it's it
Speaker 1: seemed like they were either downtown or on the east Side,
Speaker 1: which yeah, and then like Adam Sandler and Taileani or
Speaker 1: like living out this fucking like Westwood Beverly Hills, like
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills something. As a metro user, that is an
Speaker 1: hour and a half commute if you're going clear across
Speaker 1: town like that. Anyways, Yeah, I didn't that didn't even
Speaker 1: really connect for me. I like, she's probably not getting
Speaker 1: like that much more time with her daughter. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand why she makes the decision she makes, but
Speaker 1: I just thought it was like, especially for like a
Speaker 1: male writer to make that decision. It just I didn't
Speaker 1: like quite get it. Yeah, that was bizarre, but whatever,
Speaker 1: that was just kind of like a weird writing choice
Speaker 1: that I'm like, this guy is definitely a guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could have gone it could have really done something
Speaker 1: special talking about like women's labor, you know, and like
Speaker 1: emotional labor between like what Clarence Leachman is doing at
Speaker 1: the end with Haley Oni and being like like, let
Speaker 1: me give this to you as as a mother, you know,
Speaker 1: and and didn't. Yeah, again, every thread just kind of
Speaker 1: is loose to begin with and then never ties up
Speaker 1: in any way or gets fully explored. Still cried my
Speaker 1: eyes out, like yeah, that's it's like this James Alberg's
Speaker 1: was weird for this one. But I also do think
Speaker 1: that it's like he knows how to make people cry
Speaker 1: a lot, very good at that. And it's also I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like this is very clearly not his
Speaker 1: story to tell, and there was I guess I wasn't
Speaker 1: super surprised to see in two thousand four that there
Speaker 1: was absolutely no real pushback about the fact that he
Speaker 1: was doing this because I feel like it's a very
Speaker 1: like a very two thousand four but still like a
Speaker 1: contemporary problem as well. Of but he could make a
Speaker 1: movie of this budget and scale that featured like an
Speaker 1: immigrant woman as a protagonist, but that it's like this
Speaker 1: monkey's post situation where it's like, but he can't do that,
Speaker 1: he can't execute that well based on who he is,
Speaker 1: and so it's like, I don't know, it's frustrating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the casting of Passa Vega
Speaker 1: who plays Flooreda. She's from Spain. Interesting, so she's not
Speaker 1: from Mexico and she looks so much like Penelope Cruz.
Speaker 1: She does look remarkably like Penelope Cruise yes, who is
Speaker 1: also from Spain. Um, so obviously there are a lot
Speaker 1: of Mexican people who are of white European descent. However,
Speaker 1: this movie seems to me to code floor as a
Speaker 1: brown person, a person of color, even though she is
Speaker 1: a white Spaniard European. So it's not a great casting
Speaker 1: choice to cast this white European actor code her as
Speaker 1: a person of color. There are plenty of Mexican actors
Speaker 1: who could have been cast in this role and then
Speaker 1: would have been able to like bring like the experience
Speaker 1: of a Mexican person or a Mexican American immigrant to
Speaker 1: their role and like have that be a part of
Speaker 1: the the role in character. But that is not what
Speaker 1: happened in the casting. Yeah, I had no idea she
Speaker 1: was from Spain. Oh my god, I was duped. I
Speaker 1: feel like they she's like damn, I know, I didn't
Speaker 1: learn that until this morning. Like yeah, I also think
Speaker 1: there's this like there's a really weird thing with like
Speaker 1: like her beauty in the movie, where like I mean,
Speaker 1: she's like so beautiful, but that's like her whole Like
Speaker 1: she's like beautiful in doing housework and she's like beautiful
Speaker 1: and being a mother, and like Adam Sandler seems to
Speaker 1: only like say that she is beautiful, and so does
Speaker 1: Deborah too, Like Depa is constantly commenting on her appearance
Speaker 1: and Christina's in a way that almost feels fetishy to me,
Speaker 1: where they're like, look at this like exotic beauty that
Speaker 1: you are this family, Like yeah, very much exotifies if
Speaker 1: that's a word Florida and Christie, you know, especially there's
Speaker 1: that scene where Deborah is introducing Christina to the like
Speaker 1: the director of this private school. And then she has
Speaker 1: a little aside with this director who is a white woman,
Speaker 1: and says like oh yeah, like she's great, she's so smart,
Speaker 1: she's so bright, and she's Hispanic. She like whispers in
Speaker 1: her ear as if like isn't she gorgeous? Hispanic? Right,
Speaker 1: and like look at the It's almost like, look at
Speaker 1: the diversity you would bring into the school, look at
Speaker 1: my little project. Like she's like very much, which at
Speaker 1: least the writing seems self aware of of, like Debora
Speaker 1: is not supposed to seem right for that, like she's
Speaker 1: clearly wrong. And yeah, I mean especially I don't know,
Speaker 1: Devora is just so where like with Debra, it's again
Speaker 1: like a one two punch of racism and like exoticizing
Speaker 1: Christina and then also her like own internalized misogyny comes
Speaker 1: out in those moments too, because she can only understand
Speaker 1: women via commenting on and criticizing their appearance, which is
Speaker 1: like present in her how she relates to Florida and Christina,
Speaker 1: and also how she relates to her daughter like and herself,
Speaker 1: like with the running and all like the obsessive like
Speaker 1: like maintenance of her body, which is like such a
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess like I feel like I'll
Speaker 1: recommend it for the five million time on the on
Speaker 1: this show, but fearing the black body and like how
Speaker 1: American women, especially white American women, are like trained to
Speaker 1: be hyper vigilant towards their own bodies and punish other
Speaker 1: bodies that don't look like there isn't just all this
Speaker 1: just shit that is so present in her character. It's
Speaker 1: just so I feel like voiceover Christina goes into that
Speaker 1: too and seems to like be aware of like this
Speaker 1: like sickness that American women have with like being thin.
Speaker 1: But I feel I feel like initially like I'm maybe
Speaker 1: giving the movie too much credit being look how where
Speaker 1: they are of like you know, what the what's wrong
Speaker 1: with like white American woman? But I feel like making
Speaker 1: Tayley only like such a cartoon of like a Karen
Speaker 1: before that was a term like it is almost like racist,
Speaker 1: but not towards her, like towards flowed, because if it
Speaker 1: just makes flow to seem more amazing and like what
Speaker 1: is the word there's like a word for this where
Speaker 1: she's just like I don't know, she's just like infinitely
Speaker 1: better because of her quote unquote brownness and her like
Speaker 1: natural like this like natural nous that seems to be
Speaker 1: like linked to her ethnicity. You know, yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's because I'm trying to remember the way
Speaker 1: that that line of voiceover plays out. But oh I
Speaker 1: wrote it all down, I trans correct ready, But I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, what you're describing is like she
Speaker 1: just like like the movie starts to go somewhere with
Speaker 1: commenting on that hyper vigilance. Yeah, and then yeah it
Speaker 1: turns to it what's the line here? It is there
Speaker 1: was one particular cultural difference which I wish to explore
Speaker 1: academically at Princeton because this is a support of her admissions. Essay.
Speaker 1: They had to remind you every once in a while, Um,
Speaker 1: American women, I believe, actually feel the same as Hispanic
Speaker 1: women about weight, a desire for the comfort of fullness.
Speaker 1: And when that desire is suppressed for style and deprivation
Speaker 1: allowed to rule dieting, exercising, American women become afraid of
Speaker 1: everything associated with being curvacious, such as wantonness, lustfulness, sex, food, motherhood,
Speaker 1: all that is best in life. So which is just
Speaker 1: like James L. Brooks is and so it it does.
Speaker 1: I mean most I'm curious as to your thoughts too
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, it to me came off as like
Speaker 1: just very over generalizing and very like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like mothering. Yeah, I mean I think like the thing
Speaker 1: that this movie is like, I feel like James L.
Speaker 1: Brooks can like really like right his way out of anything.
Speaker 1: Like he's like seems like a very like beautiful like writer.
Speaker 1: But that sentence, like that sentence is really beautiful and
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense, like is he saying like
Speaker 1: is he saying like like Mexican women also are like
Speaker 1: this or that they're not like this. I'm not right.
Speaker 1: It seems very reductive where he's just like womanhood equals
Speaker 1: curvaceous equals motherhood equals awesome. It's like those womb equals
Speaker 1: eating Like yeah, life doesn't make a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: so I know, and you get like tricked listening to
Speaker 1: it because you're like, damn, like that's some bars there
Speaker 1: what he's saying, and you're like, wait, what what she's saying?
Speaker 1: I'm already like yeah, like could he tell us what
Speaker 1: he's saying? Here? There was this is I guess just
Speaker 1: kind of because we have for some reason covered to
Speaker 1: James Brooks written directed movies on the show pretty recently,
Speaker 1: so to our listeners, we'll stop doing that. What else
Speaker 1: has he done? He did Broadcast News, which we covered
Speaker 1: with Dave Schilling, a movie I like a lot, but
Speaker 1: I felt like there was like I guess, just like
Speaker 1: knowing his writing style. This has nothing to do with anything,
Speaker 1: but I was getting kind of like Holly Hunter neurotic woman,
Speaker 1: quote unquote, and which is how James Brooks rights women.
Speaker 1: I was getting Holly Hunter neurotic woman vibes from Deborah,
Speaker 1: but like written way more scattered and all over the place,
Speaker 1: because I feel like the Holly Hunter character and Broadcast
Speaker 1: News is like very nervous and just like kind of
Speaker 1: this vibrating nerve. But at least in that movie we
Speaker 1: talked whatever. You can listen to the episode if you want,
Speaker 1: but like it at least mostly made sense and was contextualized.
Speaker 1: But for Deborah, it's like she's just all over the place,
Speaker 1: like you just don't know. James Brooks thinks women are
Speaker 1: very neurotic. He does, and he's obsessed with the idea
Speaker 1: of a woman like going somewhere in private and bursting
Speaker 1: out into tears for a few moments and then coming
Speaker 1: back in the room because that is also what Holly
Speaker 1: Hunter does throughout the movie and what we see Florida
Speaker 1: do at the very beginning. Yeah. Wow, wow. The more
Speaker 1: we talked about, I mean, and again I guess this
Speaker 1: is this is just like women as James Brooks perceives them.
Speaker 1: But I wish that that trait, that FLOORI has of
Speaker 1: compartmentalizing her feelings for the benefit of her daughter, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like that could have been a whole movie,
Speaker 1: Like getting back to what we're talking about, this movie
Speaker 1: could be about two very very different families of women
Speaker 1: and why they deal with their ship the way they
Speaker 1: deal with it, and like how and that would have
Speaker 1: been cool. Yeah. Yeah, It feel like you don't get
Speaker 1: a lot of like protagonists who are women, which you
Speaker 1: could say Flora is or isn't, depending on you know,
Speaker 1: your read of the movie. I think she's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But you don't like get a lot of protagonists who
Speaker 1: are like women who do not express every emotion they're having.
Speaker 1: Like it just feels like a more rare thing, which
Speaker 1: I don't know. I am a woman that does express
Speaker 1: every emotion. I'm having so bad writing, but Florida is
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what what I have a question.
Speaker 1: I have two questions. One where does the sun go?
Speaker 1: He's in the movie for like to see so random
Speaker 1: you get disappeared random. He just like keeps not being
Speaker 1: there when you would expect a young nine year old
Speaker 1: kid to be at home. That story actually that storyline
Speaker 1: got cut. He was abducted in the middle of a movie.
Speaker 1: But they're just like, like, we've too much, too many characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't like James Brooks realized in the middle of
Speaker 1: the movie that there were way too many characters. He's like,
Speaker 1: they're not going to notice. Well, I noticed. Second question,
Speaker 1: what is going on with the whole like Chum the
Speaker 1: dog and the fetch thing. I thought that was going
Speaker 1: to like pay off in some way or that was
Speaker 1: going to be a thing. But that's just like a
Speaker 1: weird detail that gets introduced and then like they do
Speaker 1: nothing with. I thought that that was just a really
Speaker 1: heavy handed way of saying that Florida is not like
Speaker 1: other girls. She throws the ball, yeah, or she's like
Speaker 1: more in touch with like nature and like nurturing, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like could be like Disney princes can like speak to animals.
Speaker 1: I guess I do see it being like that, which
Speaker 1: is like, what the hell? First of all, why do
Speaker 1: you feel the need to say that? It's like, what
Speaker 1: a weird way to say it. Also, there's a scene
Speaker 1: where Florida is at the classkey house in theory, working,
Speaker 1: but she's putting together a puzzle. Did anyone notice this?
Speaker 1: She's putting a jigsaw puzzle together? And it's like they're
Speaker 1: just like, look busy, right, yeah, can't you? Can't you
Speaker 1: send her home so if she can spend time with
Speaker 1: her daughter, Like what the what are you making her
Speaker 1: put a puzzle together for her? Like? What the fuck? Anyway,
Speaker 1: I hate this movie. That's Debora. That's Devora being a
Speaker 1: control free. Another thing that I thought was like at
Speaker 1: least like it knew what it was doing a little
Speaker 1: more than other scenes was that scene that it's just
Speaker 1: like excruciating to watch. It's when Deborah is trying to
Speaker 1: convince Floor that she needs to come on the summer
Speaker 1: trip and she can't communicate with Floor. She says like,
Speaker 1: you still haven't learned English, and then she's like I
Speaker 1: have to learn how to say that in Spanish, being
Speaker 1: like ha ha, I refuse to learn Spanish and that's funny,
Speaker 1: and then you know, like grabs the nearest Spanish speaker
Speaker 1: and it was like translate for me right now, so
Speaker 1: I can tell Florida what to do, and like just
Speaker 1: the way that she I mean had a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about how shitty, but like this scene I just
Speaker 1: hated her so much, where Florida is setting a boundary.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, I can't do that, like I have
Speaker 1: a daughter, and Deborah is like hurt that she didn't
Speaker 1: know that Florida had a daughter, even though it's like
Speaker 1: you never made any effort to like try to actually
Speaker 1: communicate with her about anything. Did you ever ask her
Speaker 1: about her family? And also and then Cloris Leachman kind
Speaker 1: of like low key comes to the rescue and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: if she didn't tell you that, she's probably really private
Speaker 1: and like I'll drive her home and like kind of
Speaker 1: was like, which, I mean, she probably shouldn't. She drinks,
Speaker 1: she probably can't drive. But then it's like, I hope
Speaker 1: this was intentional. I think it was where Deborah like
Speaker 1: is so insulted that Florida is like talking to her
Speaker 1: like she's an employer and not a friend, because that
Speaker 1: is their relationship that Deborah is like, well, now I
Speaker 1: need to punish you, and you have to come live
Speaker 1: with me, and you have to like be close to me,
Speaker 1: and I have to have access to all areas of
Speaker 1: your life. Creepy her, just creepy, Debora tentacles. I know,
Speaker 1: a true villain, the true villain of the movie. But
Speaker 1: John's an amazing guy. Why does he like her? And
Speaker 1: then she's like, I don't want to think that you're
Speaker 1: out of your mind for being in love with me,
Speaker 1: But it's like he is. Yeah, there's another quick moment
Speaker 1: that I feel like again, the movie starts to set
Speaker 1: up a thing that could have been explored and interesting
Speaker 1: commentary could have been made about it, where Deborah and
Speaker 1: John are like not on the same page ever with
Speaker 1: their parenting tactics, and this is something that Debora keeps
Speaker 1: like hounding John about, like need to be on the
Speaker 1: same page. And we as the audience, are meant to
Speaker 1: identify with John and his approach because again, Deborah, because
Speaker 1: she's a woman written by James L. Brooks, is written
Speaker 1: to be quote unquote hysterical. So but she says, you
Speaker 1: told our son that you're not mad at him, and
Speaker 1: I am mad at him for something that we don't
Speaker 1: know what the son did that never even becomes clear.
Speaker 1: We have no idea. But then he got kidnapped and
Speaker 1: that he's abducted, and then we never hear from him again.
Speaker 1: But she's calling out her husband for making her seem
Speaker 1: like the bad guy because she's taking one approach, and
Speaker 1: he seems like the good guy because he's not mad
Speaker 1: at their son. And like, that's often a dynamic that
Speaker 1: plays out in hetero marriages with children, where like, you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about this a lot on the podcast, where
Speaker 1: you know, women, because they're conditioned to be the kind
Speaker 1: of more disciplinary just like more active and present parent,
Speaker 1: they often have to do the more kind of disciplinary stuff,
Speaker 1: whereas dads are sort of expected to be more Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm the I'm the goof, I'm the like we throw
Speaker 1: balls around and we play catch and do fun stuff.
Speaker 1: And but again that's just referenced in one scene, and
Speaker 1: it just feel like the movie falls on the side
Speaker 1: of like Debrah is being hysterical for bringing it up,
Speaker 1: where like Debra is wrong for bringing most things up.
Speaker 1: But that thing wasn't a thing that felt like it
Speaker 1: was almost like the way that the performance was we
Speaker 1: have no context, right, Yeah, yeah, that's the this movie
Speaker 1: in a nutshell to me, like threads or like little
Speaker 1: seeds get planted that could have been interesting things to explore,
Speaker 1: but the execution on nearly everything is completely ineffective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe just says more about like us and our family.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I think I love the movie because
Speaker 1: I love my family, and I'm like, whoa, um, sure,
Speaker 1: and that's fair, Yeah that makes sense. But I also like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's like I wish that we got
Speaker 1: to spend more time with Christina as well. That was
Speaker 1: one of my big things where Christina doesn't become an
Speaker 1: important part of the movie until like maybe almost halfway through,
Speaker 1: like not until the Summer Trip do we really see her.
Speaker 1: We don't know what she's up to, because this movie
Speaker 1: is so like preoccupied with spending time with this rich
Speaker 1: white family and how Florida is interacting with them that
Speaker 1: we don't see. We hear Christina all the time, but
Speaker 1: we don't see her for like twenty minutes at one point.
Speaker 1: And again it's like I don't know, Like it's she's
Speaker 1: such a rich character who's so relatable to so many people.
Speaker 1: I mean, like Melissa, you were saying, like she reminded
Speaker 1: you of your sister in some ways, And it just
Speaker 1: seems like a lost opportunity to show and also a
Speaker 1: lost opportunity to give Flora's character more depth because we
Speaker 1: could see, you know, who is Christina with when Florida
Speaker 1: has to be at work all the time, Like, how
Speaker 1: does she relate to Monica, how does she relate to
Speaker 1: the family, Like what what's going on with Christina? And
Speaker 1: we don't We only like the movie only becomes interested
Speaker 1: in what is going on in her life once she
Speaker 1: like enters the assimilation zone, and the movie does seem
Speaker 1: to be like ultimately like this assimilation is like not
Speaker 1: a positive thing for her, but it doesn't show you
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, the takeaway again, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you tried, movie, but you didn't really cross the finish line.
Speaker 1: Shout out though to Shelby Bruce, who plays Christina, who
Speaker 1: gave I think an incredib bold performance, especially during that
Speaker 1: scene where she is translating for her mom with the
Speaker 1: whole seed glass thing and she's like really like communicating
Speaker 1: her mom's like intent and but like she's having to
Speaker 1: talk about herself, but because the conversation is about her,
Speaker 1: but she's like having to refer to herself and like
Speaker 1: the third person because of the translation. It's really like
Speaker 1: it's I just like the rhythm of that scene. That
Speaker 1: was probably my favorite, the only scene I enjoyed in
Speaker 1: the movie, to be Frank, because of her like incredible performance.
Speaker 1: She's so good and when she's like publicly scorning her mom,
Speaker 1: I have like a visceral reaction to that, like I'm
Speaker 1: so embarrassed. Yeah, like I'll never forgive you for the Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's having a Debora tantrum, She's going Deborah, She's turning Deborah.
Speaker 1: That scene, I thought, Yeah, that scene was really really
Speaker 1: like well executed and and She'll be Bruce is the
Speaker 1: best part of it where I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have never been in a position where I had
Speaker 1: to translate between people, much less my own family, So
Speaker 1: it's not something that I personally understand, but it just
Speaker 1: it's I felt like the scene did get across what
Speaker 1: a stressful and kind of unfair experience that is for
Speaker 1: Christina to have to mediate a discussion about herself that
Speaker 1: she doesn't have any saying like there was no opportunity
Speaker 1: in that argument for Christina to say how she was feeling,
Speaker 1: because the task at hand was to communicate how her
Speaker 1: mother was feeling and then communicate back how Adam Sandler
Speaker 1: was receiving it. And it's just like, ah, well, someone
Speaker 1: asked Christina what is on her mind? Like she's doing
Speaker 1: a lot of heavy lifting here for this weird romance, right,
Speaker 1: but that scene, Yeah, that seems very well acted. I
Speaker 1: was going that I hope that she just like didn't
Speaker 1: feel like acting anymore. But she's she's not acting anymore. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she did sign a deal with Claire's Boutique to
Speaker 1: have her own jewelry line, which launched in September two
Speaker 1: thousand six. Oh, she's still living off of that. Something
Speaker 1: I realized is that, for again, a movie that is
Speaker 1: supposed to be focusing on this protagonist who is an
Speaker 1: immigrant from Mexico, we learn nothing about Mexican culture, even
Speaker 1: though it's clear that the character like her heritage is
Speaker 1: very important to her, and that there's like voice over
Speaker 1: in the beginning that says, like, my mother kept me
Speaker 1: in Mexico for as long as possible to like connect
Speaker 1: me with my Latin roots. And then when they moved
Speaker 1: to the US, they moved to a neighborhood of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles that seems to be predominantly other Mexican immigrants living
Speaker 1: in that neighborhood. And again she keeps speaking the language.
Speaker 1: She it takes her years to start to even be
Speaker 1: motivated to learn English. So there's like all these these
Speaker 1: indicators that her Mexican heritage is very important to floor,
Speaker 1: and yet the movie doesn't tell the audience anything about
Speaker 1: the culture. And I think it's just because like it
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't care. Yeah, I mean it did. Seems like Melissa,
Speaker 1: you said this earlier, where it's like the most you
Speaker 1: see of the culture that we're told repeatedly is so
Speaker 1: important to Florida is a cutaway to a party with
Speaker 1: characters we don't know eating tamales, and like that is
Speaker 1: all he was able to do. It seems like there
Speaker 1: wasn't even like Google involved. I don't know, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like seconds. It's like there's not enough time
Speaker 1: in this two hour movie. We have to have a
Speaker 1: whole subplot with this review of his restaurant, which is Geez,
Speaker 1: the restaurant you could cut out the restaurant. It's so bizarre,
Speaker 1: but I don't hate it, but it's like whatever, like
Speaker 1: that that time could be better used for so many things,
Speaker 1: And it's like that in particular, it is like James L.
Speaker 1: Brooks could have gotten this movie made and done the
Speaker 1: bare minimum of like hiring a co writer who was Mexican,
Speaker 1: like collaborating instead of being like a James L. Brooks
Speaker 1: film about something that I'm saying it's about but actually
Speaker 1: it isn't. Like that's not too much to ask because
Speaker 1: I was really curious about like because it seems like
Speaker 1: and I don't want to give him too much credit.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be careful, Like it does seem like
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks, even when like when he misses the
Speaker 1: mark a lot, but it doesn't seem like it's ever
Speaker 1: coming from a place of cruelty. It seems like it's
Speaker 1: usually from a place of ignorance and kind of like
Speaker 1: thinking he knows more than he actually does. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like kind of like Hubris of like, well, it's a
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks movie. I can't collaborate with a second person,
Speaker 1: you know, who knows what they're talking about and can
Speaker 1: write like so James L. Brooks did not do much
Speaker 1: press for this movie, but I was looking for an
Speaker 1: interview just to be like, what was his research process?
Speaker 1: Was there a research process? What work went into writing
Speaker 1: this script? Because it's so all over the place. And
Speaker 1: he says that he did which and this kind of
Speaker 1: made me laugh. He said that he did research for
Speaker 1: this movie for a year a year, Like what does
Speaker 1: that mean? He Okay, so he like live in l A.
Speaker 1: It's like that exactly. So did he just like exploit
Speaker 1: the labor of a Mexican immigrant as his housekeeper for
Speaker 1: a year like that? So what he did? I'll read
Speaker 1: it to you. It's a very it's a roller coaster
Speaker 1: of a quote, so I'll just read it to you.
Speaker 1: This is an interview he did when the movie came
Speaker 1: out into as it for person asks how much research
Speaker 1: do you do for a character? James Brooks says, enormous, enormous, enormous,
Speaker 1: sitting around table, sitting at my home, gathering women, hearing
Speaker 1: great lines, seeing women with their children, having the kids translate,
Speaker 1: talking to them about that experience that was just an
Speaker 1: accident when the kids were there with their mother one
Speaker 1: day and that led to being the most important part
Speaker 1: of the story. Maybe hundreds of women, notebooks filled with transcripts,
Speaker 1: almost of them in Spanish, which I don't speak, with
Speaker 1: somebody translating for me. And the nights when you get loose,
Speaker 1: the nights, when you do it at night and you're
Speaker 1: just sitting around and it goes on and just when
Speaker 1: it stops being formal, and some of the best of
Speaker 1: it is you're sitting back, like at this certain point
Speaker 1: instead of asking questions, and they're just talking to each
Speaker 1: other and somebody's just telling you what they're saying, and
Speaker 1: it's great. There was a nineteen year old mother of
Speaker 1: a two year old I met, and she said this
Speaker 1: extraordinary thing. I had the line in the movie, and
Speaker 1: I had to cut it out because I didn't shoot
Speaker 1: the scene. But she said that she well, she was
Speaker 1: a very attractive woman, and she said the next time
Speaker 1: she had a man who was viable at all, that
Speaker 1: she'd instead of dating him and finding out these facts
Speaker 1: about him, she'd want to take him to the park
Speaker 1: with her kids, see him interact with her kid, and
Speaker 1: make her decision on the guy based only on that.
Speaker 1: And that became the heartbeat that I kept on talking
Speaker 1: to within the movie. The quote goes on, I find
Speaker 1: this so weird and confusing, where he just makes it
Speaker 1: sound like he was inviting women to his house and
Speaker 1: write like it just sounds at night. I have so
Speaker 1: many questions, like he should have just gotten like a
Speaker 1: co writer, or like just funded this movie and not
Speaker 1: made it himself. Like, oh my god. That yeah, So
Speaker 1: that was that was his research process, was women coming
Speaker 1: over his house and then him hiring a translator to
Speaker 1: write down what they said and then putting that in
Speaker 1: the movie, which is also like exploitative in itself, like
Speaker 1: deeply exploitative, and like were the people he was talking
Speaker 1: to compensated where they credited? I'm assuming not. Who is
Speaker 1: the nineteen year old mom who said something that inspired
Speaker 1: the whole movie? Yeah? What the FuG? Yeah? So I
Speaker 1: got my answer, but it was very upsetting. So that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: Look into what he meant by the term research. What
Speaker 1: he thinks is research, which is just exploiting women that
Speaker 1: he encourages to come to his house. Just hire a
Speaker 1: co writer. What the fuck are you doing? Man? Horrible? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sorry sorry for bringing the vibe down with that,
Speaker 1: but I just was like, damn, no, my my world
Speaker 1: has been rock. No one's read that interview in seventeen years,
Speaker 1: and I feel like me to unearth it. Does anyone
Speaker 1: have anything they'd like to talk about? I think I
Speaker 1: don't think so. Yeah. Well, Um, does the movie pass
Speaker 1: the Bechel test? Yeah? It does? Right, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of like like less so as the movie
Speaker 1: goes on. But at the beginning it passes a lot,
Speaker 1: right because the focus. I mean there are and there
Speaker 1: are different combinations where of course Florida and Christina, Christina
Speaker 1: and Debora, Debora and Bernice. You know, there's different combinations
Speaker 1: Laman and various characters, right right, right right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. As the movie goes on and the focus
Speaker 1: becomes about again a romance that I could not be
Speaker 1: less compelled by. Yeah, that these other kind of interactions
Speaker 1: drop off a bit, but yeah, it does. It does pass. Um.
Speaker 1: Women are interacting quite a bit, and often about the
Speaker 1: very mundane things that this movie is about. I've never
Speaker 1: sea glass. Why is there a twenty minute segment about
Speaker 1: finding sea glass in the sand? It's a medical It's
Speaker 1: it's like so mundane that it sounds like James el
Speaker 1: Brooks had done it himself. Like it's too specific, right,
Speaker 1: very very weird, confusing, and yet I feel like it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I would I would definitely categorize this
Speaker 1: movie under the very overused term problematic fave, problematic fave.
Speaker 1: For me, it's a problematic least fase. Yeah, he's edgy,
Speaker 1: that's Kitla. That's the kind of edgy content you can
Speaker 1: expect on this show. Yeah, we're like, I did not
Speaker 1: like it, um the Yeah, this movie. It's just like
Speaker 1: I want James L. Brooks to answer for his research process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as our nipple scale goes zero to five nipples.
Speaker 1: Based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: I feel like I and I I hated the movie
Speaker 1: so much that this might cloud my judgment, But I
Speaker 1: feel like I would still only give it like maybe
Speaker 1: a one and a half nipples, because again, it does
Speaker 1: attempt to make some commentary. And then, like you said,
Speaker 1: the intentions never seemed to be malicious or like a
Speaker 1: deliberate punching down the way a lot of comedies, although
Speaker 1: I would not classify this movie as a comedy except
Speaker 1: for that one scene. Except for the week I had
Speaker 1: an orgasa there he goes, this lady had two babies
Speaker 1: and she's still keeping it tight. I'm like, what the
Speaker 1: fun is going? Oh my god, and I'm something's just
Speaker 1: like sleep the whole He's asleep and away, which honestly,
Speaker 1: there's worst ways to be. Yeah, so I think there's
Speaker 1: an effort made, but it's just that that effort was
Speaker 1: not not good. It was not executed well, and just
Speaker 1: between a lot of like threads that get dropped and
Speaker 1: some weird coding and casting stuff. The class commentary is
Speaker 1: a bit more effective for me, but again, the movie
Speaker 1: is so scattered and choppy narratively that I don't know
Speaker 1: what the takeaway is and it's just a big old
Speaker 1: mess for me. UM. I do appreciate and completely see
Speaker 1: how families and an individuals UM could see themselves represented
Speaker 1: in a movie like especially because so few movies, especially
Speaker 1: ones that are like mainstream theatrical releases, and not many
Speaker 1: of them, deal with the experience of an immigrant family.
Speaker 1: I would argue that this one barely explores that because
Speaker 1: so much of the focus is still on the classkey
Speaker 1: drama that's going on. But I still understand that there
Speaker 1: is some degree of representation that people can see themselves in.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to like diminish that or take
Speaker 1: that away from anyone. But luckily it's not two thousand
Speaker 1: four anymore, and representation in that regard has been getting
Speaker 1: slightly better in the years scenes. So I'm only going
Speaker 1: to give it one and a half nipples, and I
Speaker 1: will give one to Christina and I will give my
Speaker 1: half nipple to floor. I feel like being overly nostalgic
Speaker 1: by but like to like I want to go to
Speaker 1: you know, I think that this like movie is very
Speaker 1: much what is wrong with It is very glaringly wrong.
Speaker 1: And the more you learn about the production, the it
Speaker 1: becomes why it's coming off the way it's coming off,
Speaker 1: and like what like I do agree that it's like
Speaker 1: James Brooks wasn't approaching this material with malicious intent, but
Speaker 1: it was like it's clear that he's most interested in
Speaker 1: the Adam Sandler character, in which case, like right, it
Speaker 1: like that's a different movie, make a different movie, or again,
Speaker 1: like hire a co writer who is interested in who
Speaker 1: you're claiming is your protagonist, because he just like seems
Speaker 1: interested in you know again, I mean I can't really
Speaker 1: speak to his intent because he didn't do any interviews
Speaker 1: about this movie except the one weird one, but like
Speaker 1: weird that it does seem like he takes steps to
Speaker 1: other floor in any ways and ways that I think
Speaker 1: he views this very complimentary and like, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: uthering her. I'm saying that she's absolutely perfect and the
Speaker 1: ultimate mommy. And it's like, well, that's other here, you know,
Speaker 1: Like he's just like you were saying, Caitlin, like and
Speaker 1: and like you were speaking about your own experience, Wilissa.
Speaker 1: It's like this this movie connected for reasons that are
Speaker 1: related to writing and for reasons that are related to
Speaker 1: lack of options of like in two thousand four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it just know, the only way to make a
Speaker 1: widely distributed movie about the story of two Mexican immigrant
Speaker 1: women was to have a white guy who knew nothing
Speaker 1: of that experience and didn't take many steps to include
Speaker 1: or involve. You know, it doesn't even speak Spanish. Like
Speaker 1: he didn't admit like I don't know what they were saying,
Speaker 1: I don't speak Spanish. It's like, why would you make
Speaker 1: a movie about that? Then? Right, well he makes it.
Speaker 1: He makes a creepy comment about how pass Vega didn't
Speaker 1: speak much English, and he didn't speak much Spanish, and
Speaker 1: I think he's trying to like draw this parallel that's like, honey, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what was going on. He Adam Sandler. I
Speaker 1: think he's Adam Sandler and she's the character she was
Speaker 1: playing well. But but yeah, I mean it's just like
Speaker 1: it's so two thousand and four and its flaws, but
Speaker 1: I think that there are, like there are strong threads
Speaker 1: and relationships that, like you see parts of that seemed
Speaker 1: very promising, and that just he just can't follow through on.
Speaker 1: Like Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy is just not the guy to
Speaker 1: make this story. But he did his he did his best,
Speaker 1: and it was it was okay for two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: So I'll give it to nipples and give one to Christina,
Speaker 1: and I will give one to Monica because I wanted
Speaker 1: her in the movie. More cousin Monica. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: funny justice for Monica. She had she like got her
Speaker 1: nose broken, she had good side eyes at at Deborah.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give this movie two and a half nipples.
Speaker 1: It was going to be three nipples. And then the
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks um research that you've told me, about
Speaker 1: really took half a nipple away, UM so horrible. I
Speaker 1: really hate I really hate that. I think I still, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still still like sentimentally attached to this movie, but
Speaker 1: it's just because of like who I am. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so it's so fun to talk about too, because
Speaker 1: there's so much going on there that is a rye
Speaker 1: and I yeah, I could. I feel like I could
Speaker 1: talk about it for like maybe another half hour, but
Speaker 1: I know there's like stuff I feel like we missed,
Speaker 1: but I'm just like I'm tired. I'm tired. I have
Speaker 1: to go to bed. I know I'm gonna give of
Speaker 1: one nipple to Klarrences Leachman through the whole movie because
Speaker 1: she's so funny and weird and I love I just
Speaker 1: love a drunk old woman and I love that her
Speaker 1: purpose is just like being this like dried out like
Speaker 1: jazz singer who is just like drinking by noon and
Speaker 1: just like being funny. I love her. And I'll give
Speaker 1: another nipple to the Christina translating for her mother scene
Speaker 1: because it is it's pretty classic. And I like that
Speaker 1: he's trying to eat the sandwich the whole time and
Speaker 1: he can't and then have a nipple to the final
Speaker 1: scene of the movie that just always gets to me,
Speaker 1: even I I screencapped it while I was watching it,
Speaker 1: where she says, um, the only thing that will define
Speaker 1: me is being my mother's daughter. That really got to me.
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks, I don't know you. I think that
Speaker 1: was really formative to me too. I've like, that's like
Speaker 1: in my my poetry somewhere probably plagiarized. Um, but I
Speaker 1: mean he probably plagiarized it from the women that he
Speaker 1: invited over to his house. Dang. Yeah, I wouldn't lose
Speaker 1: sleep over it. Yeah, but that's just happening. Also. Yeah, well, Melissa,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is so fun. It was fun to hang out.
Speaker 1: Thanks for bringing us this movie. Uh, that is such
Speaker 1: a I mean truly, it's just like, let people make
Speaker 1: their own movies, James. Don't let James L. Brooks do it. Look,
Speaker 1: what would happen? Tell us more about your book and
Speaker 1: where people can buy it and check out your other
Speaker 1: stuff and follow you on social media and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um, you can follow me on social
Speaker 1: media at e L l oh Melissa, that's my handle
Speaker 1: everywhere I'm on the internet way too much. And my book,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's a novel in verse about bringing
Speaker 1: Sleana back to life through sance, and it's all about
Speaker 1: identity and love and loneliness in a way that maybe
Speaker 1: um was you know a tiny bits of spanglisher in there.
Speaker 1: Um identicate a book to Jameson Brooks. Um and anyway, No, no,
Speaker 1: he's an icon. I get it right. It's like I
Speaker 1: only wrote my everything I do is because of Jimmy Brooks. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, my book is out. You can get it
Speaker 1: wherever books are being sold. Um. It would be great
Speaker 1: if you didn't get it on Amazon and got it
Speaker 1: on bookshop dot org. They support indie bookstores. Um. Or
Speaker 1: you could call up your local indie bookstore and buy
Speaker 1: it there. I would love if you read my book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. Thank you, Yeah, I love you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this show again so much. I love Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on. I love it. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: You can go to patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast
Speaker 1: and subscribe to our Matreon, which is five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: You get to bonus episodes every month, plus access to
Speaker 1: the very large back catalog. You can get our merch
Speaker 1: at public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast. If that's
Speaker 1: you know what you feel like day, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: it's none of our business. Live your life, that's true.
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